


My Kingdom for a Cat

by CelestialArcadia



Series: Gifted [Caline Amell | Samantha Hawke | Ilena Lavellan] [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Cats, Custom Warden (Dragon Age), Gen, Humor, Named Amell (Dragon Age), POV Anders (Dragon Age), POV Third Person Limited, mention of background f!Amell/Alistair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21611518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestialArcadia/pseuds/CelestialArcadia
Summary: Whilst patrolling Amaranthine, Anders comes across a stray cat—hardly an uncommon occurrence in a city, but he's so enchanted with this one that he insists on taking it with him and introducing it to the Warden-Commander.Or at least he would if he could actuallyfindher.How is it that the one time he actually wants to talk to her, she seems to have disappeared?
Relationships: Female Amell & Anders
Series: Gifted [Caline Amell | Samantha Hawke | Ilena Lavellan] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575625
Kudos: 9





	My Kingdom for a Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Posted just a few minutes too late for Dragon Age Day. Oh well! It's still December 4 somewhere...

If _he_ were in charge of things, Anders would turn Vigil’s Keep into a cat sanctuary. He had grand plans for it, in fact, which the rest of Amaranthine’s Grey Warden ranks were treated to in great length on a night when alcohol had flowed particularly freely between them. (Justice did not participate in the imbibing, but he was still there, sitting a bit outside the rest of the group and looking on at the others’ drunken antics disapprovingly.)

The commander had, to her credit, patiently listened to every suggestion he had to make the Keep more feline-friendly, but he took away all that credit she had earned with him after she had bluntly refused every single one of his suggestions. Even the reasonable ones!

“Cats‘re—cats—” Warden-Commander Caline Amell began, trying for an authoritative tone but too tipsy to pull it off. “They’re fine, I suppose. Alright. I guess. Not special. But fine. Could be worse. Could be bears.”

Anders had to down the rest of his mug to keep himself from simply yelling at her. After taking a deep breath, he did it anyway. “ _Not special?_ Have you even _met_ a cat? They’re so—so—if you ever _met_ a cat you wouldn’t just say they’re _alright!_ ”

“Ridiculous. Of course I’ve met cats before.” She took a large swig from her mug. “Bet I’ve met more cats than you. I’m a cat _expert_. That’s how I know they’re alright.”

“How’re you an _expert?_ ”

“’s a secret. Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”

“Ugh. No wonder Irving liked you so much.” Anders rolled his eyes. It felt like he’d managed to sprain his face somehow, and he must have looked particularly funny as a result, because the commander doubled over in laughter at the sight of him. He remembered that she was years younger than him—just barely out of childhood, really; she mentioned that she had received the notice about being given control of the arling on her twentieth birthday—and somehow also the Hero of Ferelden, and a deeply uncomfortable blend of emotions balled up in his chest. Or maybe that was just nausea. He _had_ been drinking quite a lot.

Not long after, the conversation turned towards other topics, like how abhorrent the drinks they had were (nobody could agree on what made them bad, but everyone agreed that they were awful, with the exception of Oghren, who just found the drinks disappointingly mild; the other Wardens each made internal notes to themselves to never drink anything Oghren recommended), and cats were forgotten, at least for that night.

But when it comes to cats, Anders never _truly_ forgets.

* * *

A fortnight or so afterward, Anders was tasked with going out and procuring miscellaneous supplies from the vendors of Amaranthine; the commander was busy with some meeting regarding arling administration, and there were comparatively few things he needed to get on this trip, so he was able to go alone and unhurried.

“Unhurried” meaning that he was completely ignoring his task. He instead wandered around the city, occasionally engaging in light conversation with members of the Mages’ Collective.

After Anders had finished griping about the Chantry for the third time that day, he was struck by the sight of a cat resting outside the Crown and Lion. Stray cats were hardly an uncommon sight in the city, but something about _this_ cat stood out; it was much cleaner, more elegant than the average stray. Anders approached it carefully.

“Well, hello there,” he said sweetly.

The cat looked up at him with an intrigued look on its face. It pounced on Anders, and he stumbled to catch it.

He tried to shake off the feeling that the cat was laughing at him.

“Where did you come from…?”

Anders went around the area as best he could and asked about the cat, but nobody recognized her or knew of anybody who was missing a cat with a matching description. Not wanting to simply release her, he decided to take the cat to the Warden-Commander and ask if she would be willing to let him keep her, even if temporarily.

* * *

“Where _is_ she?”

Anders was at his wit’s end. According to the time, the meeting the commander had been at had ended hours before, so there was no reason for her to be so damned difficult to find.

And yet.

He’d asked everyone he encountered. The other Wardens, the Keep’s staff, Wade and Herren, anyone and everyone who he could find—none of them had seen the commander that day.

Eventually, he resigned himself to simply returning to the barracks and waiting for her to return from wherever she’d snuck off to. He placed the cat on a nearby table and told her to stay as he went off to put away his staff. After turning around, he heard behind him the tell-tale sound of a spell being cast as a soft light sparked.

Anders rushed back, and saw that sitting on the table, in the exact location where the cat had been, was the Warden-Commander. She had a devilish grin on her face as she rocked her legs back and forth.

“Hello, Anders.”

“C-Commander! I’ve been looking for you! What happened to the cat?”

Caline sighed. “Maker’s breath…don’t blink, alright?” she said flatly.

Anders watched in amazement as the commander transformed into the cat he had been so entranced with, then just as quickly returned to her human form.

He stood slack-jawed for a moment before finally deciding which of his many questions to ask first. “So…I spent half the day looking for you…while I was holding you, as a cat, in my arms the whole time?”

“That’s right.”

“…how? They don’t exactly teach that type of magic in the Circle. Not even to teacher’s pets.”

She ignored the bait insult. “It’s a trick I learned while we were stopping the Blight. Comes in handy sometimes. Your reaction wasn’t _quite_ as funny as Alistair’s, but it was amusing nonetheless. I guess it makes sense that a mage wouldn’t have such an extreme reaction to seeing strange magics as he did.” (Anders would make sure to ask about _this_ story later, when the commander would be drunk enough to divulge embarrassing stories about her lover on request.)

“Can y—”

“I’m not teaching you. I made a promise.”

“Do you _only_ turn into a cat?”

“No, I just find my cat form to be the easiest to move around in sneakily. People tend to react poorly when you wander into town as a bear or a giant spider.”

“I can imagine.”

She got off the table then crossed her arms, a decidedly less playful expression on Caline’s face. “Now that you’ve interrogated me, I just have one question for you, Anders.”

“What is it?” He felt a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Where are those potions I asked you to get?”

**Author's Note:**

> So the basic concept of this fic—Anders discovering a cat without realizing that it's actually a shapeshifted Warden, and the Warden playing along for shits and giggles—is actually something that's been rolling around my head for a long time, since when I first played Awakening in 2010. Frankly, I'm not sure why it took me nearly a decade to actually do something with the idea, but I'm glad that I've finally put it to metaphorical paper.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Any and all constructive feedback is welcome.


End file.
